Creative accounting practice and business performance: evidence from Pakistan

Ali Malik, Jonathan Liu and Orthodoxia Kyriacou

International Journal of Business Performance Management, 2011, vol. 12, issue 3, 228-241

Abstract: This paper explores the issue of creative accounting and evidence of its use in Pakistan. The financial characteristics of Pakistani companies, officially or publically identified for using some form of creative accounting are investigated and explored. Through the use of financial ratios and a control sample of companies identified for not having used creative accounting are analysed and compared. Survey results show statistically significant differences in sample-control comparison of ratios and indicate that there appears to be a convergence of opinions on the use of such practices. Further, the findings provide evidence that financial characteristics, as measured by ratios, could be used as a tool to identify companies that are likely to be involved in creative accounting and therefore form a basis for measuring, controlling and influencing how company performance may be perceived.

Keywords: creative accounting; gearing; performance measurement; ratio analysis; Pakistan; business performance; financial ratios; firm performance. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=39888 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijbpma:v:12:y:2011:i:3:p:228-241

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Business Performance Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().